random thoughts

No pictures yet....I can't figure out how to download them from the camera (Pete showed me once, but it was awhile ago and my attempts aren't working). Soon, I promise.

I had the privilege of attending Pete's Employee of the Month celebration today. It's really a neat thing that they do - there were some representatives from HR there and Pete's co-workers had the opportunity to share the qualities they admire in him. And Pete works with a fantastic team of people - I'm so glad he does. I can provide him with support up to a point - I don't ever truly know what he experiences on a day-to-day basis, but they do and they are a great support for each other. I'm very proud of him and the work he does - God has truly blessed me with an amazing husband.

We have our first non-cosmetic house update tomorrow: an electrical service upgrade. We're getting a new breaker box (ours is a Federated Pacific brand - not known for its safety) and breaking off some rooms to new circuits. Currently, it seems like half the house is on one circuit and we blow one in particular fairly regularly - it affects the basement, the kitchen, breakfast nook and living room. After tomorrow, we'll have a safer house. :) And it paves the way for a new furnace (also needed - our current one is about 37 years old and on its last legs) and possibly air conditioning.

As I write this, I'm watching "Children of the Shoah" on PBS, a documentary about the Holocaust. There really aren't words to describe it - it's both riveting and disturbing and so important to be reminded of.

Once again, pictures coming soon!

Long time, no blog

We are terrible at this blogging thing!

No pictures to post this time (and sometimes blogs can get boring without them), but just a few general updates for all 3 people who read this. (Hi Rachel!) :)

To brag a little on my husband, he was named Wedgwood's Employee of the Month for April. While he doesn't get a prime parking spot or something like that, he does get some (I think) well-deserved recognition for his work with hurting kids.

The nicer weather has stalled work on removing our wallpaper. It's much more fun to be outside working on the yard instead of tearing down wallpaper. I hope to get to a little more of that this weekend. Pete is of the opinion that we take down the primed-over layer of wallpaper that's under what we're currently taking down. While it doesn't thrill me, I think he's right. Maybe we'll be done by the time fall rolls around.

I don't want to make any empty promises, but maybe we'll soon post pictures of our weekend: Pete's family is coming to celebrate his birthday on Saturday, we'll be at my grandparents' house on Sunday and taking in a Detroit Tigers game on Monday. Fun!

Sometimes I like my job

Well, actually, I like my job most of the time. But I really like it on days like we had on Tuesday. One of the "perks" of working for Family Christian Stores is that authors and artists occasionally pay a visit when they're in town. This week, it was Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, a very hot book right now, especially among people my age. And while it may be trendy to read his books, I appreciated and resonated with a lot of what he had to say in BLJ, and I especially appreciated his authenticity and humility in his little talk to us at the corporate office.

In other Anderson news, work begins tomorrow on taking down wallpaper in our side entryway. It's currently papered with pink stripes, with a birdhouse border on top. Not only are the pink stripes not quite my taste, but it's also in pretty bad shape. Plus the woodwork has seen better days. It's amazing the things you don't notice when you first fall in love with a house! But the day we took possession and walked in, we realized that the house needed a bit more work than we originally thought. Thank goodness it's mostly cosmetic. If we can find the charger for our digital camera, I hope to take and post pictures of the process.

Pete did an amazing job on our front entryway. He put in the floor, in addition to helping to paint trim and painting the cupboard and closet doors. Plus he didn't lose his patience when putting the doors back on proved to be a more arduous task than we thought it would be. I admire his level head and sense of calm in situations like that. I get frustrated and want to give up; he sticks to it and gets it done. One of his many admirable qualitites!

I'm Turning Into My Dad

Today we went grocery shopping and, to my delight, chocolate milk and Pepsi were both on sale.

Last night, Amy and I went over to Phil and Dawn's to get the rest of our stuff out of their basement and then we hung out for a little bit. They told us of something that Annie (the 6 year old) was overheard saying - "My parents are different than other parents because they don't live apart." It's a sobering reminder of the shift that has occured in what an average family looks like.

A Beginning and an End

After church we went on a road trip to make two important visits.

The first was to the hospital in Holland to visit our new niece, Anne Hope Meyering. She was born yesterday and is just the most precious little thing. Amy's brother, Kevin, and his wife, Katie, now have a boy and a girl. From what I've been told, he didn't seem all that interested when he saw her in the hospital but is really cute when he says, "baby Anne Hope."

The second was to a Funeral Home in Gobles to attend the wake of my grandmother's brother Charles. It was not so much a sad time but a celebration of his life. Uncle Charles wanted to enjoy life and those around him couldn't help but enjoy it too. He would have turned 95 in April.

2 Time Suckers

Yesterday I spent a good deal of time just looking at pictures on Flickr. There are some amazing photos there and I kept looking at more and more and more... I created my own Flickr account and uploaded some of my own.

I also have an affinity to recommender sites. I found a new one for music that I really like - it's called Pandora. It has the coolest interface of any recommender site that I've ever played with.

Scuba Photos

The underwater pictures on this website are impressive. I have always thought it would be fun to go scuba diving but have never had the opportunity or the resources to do it.

Undersea Photography

Olympic Thoughts

I haven't been able to watch much of the Olympics but I have seen enough to make a few observations.

• Apparently to be an Olympic athlete you need to have your teeth whitened. Some of these athletes look like their teeth glow in the dark.
• I really don't like the subjectiveness of judged events, I prefer the concreteness of a clock or a goal or a target or a distance.
• The ice skating events feel like a reality show - after they finish their routine I expect a 1-800 number to show up on the bottom of the screen in case I want to vote for them.
• I can't tell the difference between a "double axel triple toe loop" and a "2.5 rotation sow cow"
  

Basic Maintenance

One thing about owning a house is having to fix things and there are more things to fix when you have an older house. It's been kinda fun discovering that I can fix toilets and make screens for my windows. Today I did the simple task of replacing a few electrical outlets. When you tried to plug stuff into them the cord would just fall out because it fit so loosely. I looked at the outlets and the wiring and it had obviously been a while since they had been replaced, I even wondered if they had ever been replaced. I also wondered how long previous owners put up with the annoyance of loose plugs but never did anything about it. It takes very little money and very little effort to replace them but you just have to take the time to do it. It was so exciting to plug something in and have it stay.

There are just so many things that we just deal with instead of taking care of them which, if we would do that, would make things easier because we wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. A little bit of maintenance goes a long way. Amy has been running herself ragged trying to accomplish too many things and meeting expectations she has for herself that are so much higher than what others have asked of her. She has been so focused on making others happy that she doesn't take the time for herself and occasionally it gets to be too much. She needs to take the time to do some self maintenance and we're still working on what that looks like. With my job I have learned the importance of taking care of myself and thought I was doing pretty well at it but in helping Amy deal with this issue I realized I needed to make a few modifications myself. I tend to focus so much on personal leisure that I put off dealing with other responsiblilites like replacing electrical outlets. Not only does my house need regular maintenance, so do I.

What Santa Does With His Free Time

I have been looking at this every day for the last couple months and finally got around to taking a picture of it. While standing in my kitchen at the sink I get a great view of the back of my neighbor's house. She placed a large Santa Claus figurine outside her slider door which, from my perspective, appears to be peeing on her house. Perhaps she thinks it is cute to have him looking through her windows but I find the concept of a voyeristic jolly old elf disturbing. Maybe Santa's real name is Peeping Tom.